Talking to the BBC about social media in China
Earlier this month, I was very fortunate to be interviewed by the BBC on my research onto the use of technology in China. The article that was published…
Tag: Sharing our findings
Visualising Facebook by Daniel Miller and Jolynna Sinanan
Today marks the publication of a new book called Visualising Facebook, which I have written with Dr Jolynna Sinanan. It is available as a free download from UCL Press…
“The Value of Social Media” at the AAA conference
Daniel Miller talking at the AAA conference. Photo by Nell Haynes. From the Why We Post Team, Nell Haynes, Tom McDonald, and Daniel Miller attended the American Anthropological…
From Facebook to ‘fakebook’ – who controls the information on social media?
A young Chinese factory worker reading on his smartphone. Mark Zuckerberg finally said that Facebook plans to have a more effective control of misinformation, which is a sharp reversal…
Public anthropology: urgent yet undervalued
An education in anthropology encourages us to look beyond cultural assumptions. In the days following the results of the US presidential election, there has allegedly been a wave…
Taking Why We Post to China
Although the Why We Post project is primarily an attempt to study the use and consequences of social media, there were other broader aims. Particularly, the hope that…
Why We Post Tour of Chinese Universities
Between 12th-24th September 2016, Professor Daniel Miller and two researchers on the Why We Post project, Tom McDonald and Xinyuan Wang, will give a series of talks about…
Expanding beyond our project – kinship in the light of social media
. @DannyAnth speaking at our #EASA2016 #SocialMedia and #kinship panel right now! @EASAinfo @UCLWhyWePost pic.twitter.com/CIpLWzSXrw — Tom McDonald (@AnthroTom) July 22, 2016 The recent meeting of t…
Making a MOOC: Social Dynamics and Ecological Design
Guest post by Sheba Mohammid, a fellow on the Why We Post project. Sheba is a PhD candidate at RMIT University in Digital Anthropology/ Media and Communications and was previously Coordinator…
The end…not really!
Learner locations on Why We Post: the Anthropology of Social Media The first run of our free five-week e-course, We Why Post: the Anthropology of Social Media, has now come to…
Anything but selfies
In every respect we are delighted with the launch of our project. We now engage in daily interaction with thirteen thousand students registered on our FutureLearn course, plus 1,300…
Why We Post is “the biggest, most ambitious project of its sort”, says The Economist
Since our launch on the 29th February, the first three open access books in the Why We Post series have been downloaded over 6,000 times! 6,000 downloads in just…
The launch of Why We Post
Released today: ‘How the World Changed Social Media’ After years of work and planning, we have today launched Why We Post, which represents the results of our project.…
Build Karma Points on Social Media
Everyday salutations such as ‘Good Morning’, ‘Good Afternoon’, ‘Good Evening’ etc. are common social media interactions of the people of Panchagrami, used to keep …
They flirt, they share porn and they gossip
The last four months of 2015 were tough. I was locking myself in a claustrophobic student carrel every day, spending 9 hours staring at a computer screen but…
“Free Basics” – does it really matter to the poor in Panchagrami?
Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons: Facebook The launch of Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’, a rebranding of internet.org, has been a hot topic in India for the past few months as Facebook tries to…
Teenagers on social media in southeast Italy – quantitative data
In this blog post I will take a look to the quantitative data from my fieldwork, discussing some findings from a questionnaire I conducted with students in their…
Why popular anthropology?
The core mission of anthropology is the understanding of human behaviour in a world full of cultural and historical diversity. The anthropological commitment to this immense plurality…
Why We Post: The Anthropology of Social Media
The Why We Post project is now moving into its final stages at full speed, gearing up for our public launch on February 29th 2016. On this…
Aspiring Politician? Try Facebook to build your personal brand.
Image Courtesy: @mkstalin and image shared on Saravanan’s Facebook profile Personal brand building through social media requires a strategically planned presentation of oneself to a general audi…
Sharing anthropological discoveries on social media: ‘marketing’ or ‘interactive learning’?
Social media and engaging anthropology? (Photo: Pabak Sarkar CC BY 2.0) Over the last year, people have often asked us questions like “Surely you will market your project using social…
Job opportunity: Can you help the world discover our findings?
Can you help us build our dissemination materials? (photo by MF) As part of our project’s ambitious dissemination plans we are currently seeking to recruit a content manager to assist…
Using storytelling to build online courses
The project team filming a video for our online course Recently we have been filming a new online course on the anthropology of social media that will be available…
Why do Young Men from Lower Socio-Economic Classes prefer Shopping Online?
Photo by Shriram Venkatraman Most of us on social media have noticed the static advertisements that are displayed on the side panels or the advertisements that intrude upon…